“I can smell your heat from the hallway.”

Caelira froze mid-step.

The bathwater still clung to her skin, droplets sliding down the curve of her thighs as she stood barefoot in the middle of the moonlit chamber. Her only covering..a silk robe that clung like sin…slipped further off one shoulder at the sound of his voice.

The door hadn’t creaked.

He was just… there.

Watching her.

“Your Majesty,” she said without turning.

The title was mockery. Drenched in defiance.

“You bathe alone?” Therion’s voice was darker tonight. Rougher. Like his patience had been caged too long. “That wasn’t part of the rules.”

“You didn’t say I had to ask permission to scrub off your stink,” she shot back, turning slowly.

He was leaning against the stone archway, boots tracking dirt onto the polished floors. His shirt was open, black silk hanging loose over his chest, revealing the jagged bite mark near his collarbone…ancient and faded.

A mark from a woman he never claimed.

A ghost she’d never ask about.

His gaze dropped to her chest. “You’re wet.”

“Obviously.”

“Not just from the bath.”

She stilled. Her heart thudded.

He stepped forward.

Slow. Heavy. Every move a quiet threat.

“Do you touch yourself when I’m not looking, Caelira?” His voice slithered over her like smoke. “Do you imagine this cock in you when you're alone in the dark?”

Her throat dried. “Would that make you jealous, my King?”

He was on her in a flash.

Fist tangled in her damp hair, the other hand gripping her jaw, forcing her head back. “Do I look like a man who shares what’s mine?”

“Then take it.” Her voice didn’t tremble. “Show me who the fuck owns me.”

His growl was low, guttural. “You’ll beg.”

“Only if you’re worth it.”

She didn’t get to say more.

His mouth crashed down on hers like war.

It wasn’t a kiss…it was a threat. All teeth, heat, and dominance. Her back hit the nearest wall, robe yanked open like he was tearing off armor. Her nipple pierced the cold air, and then his mouth was there…sucking, biting, devouring until she arched into him with a gasp.

“You smell like sin,” he snarled, dragging his tongue down her stomach. “And I’m starving.”

“Then eat,” she dared, nails raking through his hair.

His laugh was savage.

Her thighs were forced apart, one leg hitched over his shoulder before she could blink. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t tease. Just buried his face between her legs like a beast returning to the kill.

“Fucking gods…” she choked.

His tongue licked a path from her entrance to her clit, circling it with obscene precision. She bucked. He held her down with a palm splayed across her stomach, holding her like prey.

“You’re dripping,” he groaned into her. “Little wolf’s cunt is desperate, isn’t it?”

“Shut up and keep going.”

His eyes flicked up, glowing faintly.

“Say please.”

“Fuck you.”

His mouth disappeared.

She gasped. “You bastard…”

“Say. Please.”

She gritted her teeth. Hated him. Hated how her body was shaking. How empty she suddenly felt.

“Please,” she snapped.

He grinned.

Then sank two fingers into her.

“Next time, say Daddy.”

Her moan hit the ceiling.

His fingers worked like they belonged inside her. Crooked just right. Curling until her knees buckled. She gripped his shoulders for balance, panting, helpless, furious.

And right before she came…he stopped.

“You son of a…”

He stood up.

Pressed her back against the wall with his body. She felt his cock, thick and hot, pressing between her folds.

But he didn’t push in.

He held her there. Teasing.

“You think I’ll just fuck you like a whore?” he breathed against her lips. “No. I’m going to breed you like one.”

She should’ve slapped him.

She kissed him instead.

It was fire.

Rage. Lust. Power.

He lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around his waist. One hard thrust…and she screamed. Not in pain.

In pure, filthy, unholy relief.

“Mine,” he growled.

“You wish.”

He fucked her like he hated her. Like he needed her to feel everything he wasn’t allowed to say. The wall cracked behind her. Her fingers clawed down his back. Her lips bit his throat.

“Beg me to stop,” he demanded.

“Never.”

He slammed deeper.

“Beg me to come inside you.”

“Do it, you fucking coward.”

And when he did..when he growled her name like a curse and came so hard it broke her…Caelira didn’t scream.

She laughed.

Exhausted. Wrecked. Bloody-knuckled from gripping stone.

But victorious.

Therion’s arms caged her.

His breath was ragged against her ear.

“No woman has ever made me come this hard.”

She licked his jaw. “And I haven’t even started ruining you yet.”

He pulled back to look at her.

Eyes wild. Face unreadable.

“You really don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”

“Besides destroy your ego?”

He didn't smile.

“You’ve made me want more.”

“Get some rest…” his voice dropped low as he leaned in, grazing his lips against the shell of her ear. “You’ll need it.”

And then he walked out.

The heavy door thudded shut behind him.

But the silence he left behind was deafening.

Caelira stood there.

Still slick with him. Skin marked. Thighs trembling.

Then…she crumbled.

Right there in the far corner of the room, she slid down to the cold stone floor. Her knees pulled to her chest. Her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her naked body curled into itself.

Her whisper was a crack in the dark.

“I just gave away my virginity to a monster.”

She didn’t cry.

Didn’t have the energy left to cry.

She just stared at the floor like it might swallow her whole.

“Stupid. Fucking stupid.”

Her voice was hoarse. Bitter. Full of hate she didn’t know where to aim.

What she didn’t know..what she couldn’t know…was that Therion Nyctraeus hadn’t left yet.

He was on the other side of that door.

Hand braced against the stone. Head bowed. Fangs clenched. Jaw locked so tight the muscle ticked beneath his scarred cheek.

He heard her.

Every word.

Every shaky breath.

And he said nothing.

Did nothing.

He just stood there in silence… before walking away.

A curse under his breath, too soft to reach her.

Inside, Caelira buried her face into her knees. Her breaths came in short, ragged bursts.

“You’re not supposed to feel anything,” she muttered. “It was supposed to be a transaction. Just survival.”

Her eyes burned, but she forced the tears down.

“It was just sex.”

Her voice cracked on the word.

And gods… it wasn’t.

It wasn’t just anything.

It was war. Hunger. Violence. It was years of fear crashing into one moment she couldn't take back.

Her fingernails dug into her skin.

“If only… if only Mother was still alive,” she whispered.

Her body tensed.

The words slipped out without warning. And once they did, they just kept coming.

“She wouldn’t have let this happen. She would’ve fought for me.”

The memory of her mother’s eyes…storm-gray, like hers…hit hard.

Gentle.

Warm.

Gone.

“She wouldn’t have sold me like cattle. Wouldn’t have let that bitch put a price on my virginity.”

Her voice dropped lower.

“My stepmother looked at me like I was some dirty thing to be discarded. Like the moment Father married her, I stopped being his daughter.”

She let out a bitter laugh.

“Guess I did.”

Therion’s steps echoed down the corridor, but his mind stayed in that room.

With her.

With the sound of her voice breaking for the first time.

He shouldn’t have cared.

Should’ve just moved on. Gone to his chambers. Plotted his next move.

But he couldn’t unhear her.

“I just gave away my virginity to a monster.”

His jaw flexed again.

Good.

That’s what he was supposed to be. That’s the role she needed him to play.

That’s what her bloodline deserved.

And yet…

Fuck.

Caelira sat in the dark.

Flashbacks swirled like ghosts.

The day she was sold.

The bruises. The chains.

The look on her father’s face as he signed the auction slip like he was signing off a business deal.

He didn’t even flinch.

Didn’t look back.

“You’ve always been too defiant,” her stepmother had whispered that day, lips curled into a smirk. “You weren’t made for this world. But perhaps you’re made to be fucked by it.”

Her hands clenched into fists now.

She could still hear the whispers from the other girls at the inn of breeders.

“If you want to survive, be ready to breed.”

“Break fast. It hurts less.”

“He won’t love you. They never do. They don’t want hearts. Just holes.”

Her throat tightened.

Was this what breaking looked like?

Was this what they meant?

Because what happened in that room… it wasn’t softness.

It was raw. Brutal.

But it hadn’t just been her body. Something deeper had cracked open.

And that scared her more than the man himself.

Down the corridor, Therion gripped the stone balustrade on the castle’s terrace, the wind whipping his cloak.

Iven approached silently.

“You marked her.”

Therion didn’t look back.

“I fucked her. That’s not the same.”

“She’s bleeding in that room, and not from her cunt. You heard it. Don’t act like you didn’t.”

“Watch your tone,” Therion growled.

But Iven didn’t back down.

“You said you wanted revenge. That she was just a tool. But you’re acting like…”

“Like what?” Therion’s voice dropped to a threat.

Iven’s mouth snapped shut.

For a long beat, neither spoke.

Finally, the king turned, eyes sharp as daggers.

“She’s the daughter of the man who butchered my bloodline. That cunt of hers is soaked in betrayal. Don’t mistake lust for weakness.”

“You sure?”

Therion’s silence was the only answer.

In her chamber, Caelira finally stood.

Her legs wobbled, and her body ached like she’d been split in half.

But she didn’t fall again.

She walked to the mirror.

Her reflection was a ghost.

Marked. Raw.

But alive.

“You survived.”

She whispered it like a spell. Like it might protect her from the war coming next.

“You fucking survived.”

She turned from the mirror, yanked on a nightrobe, and crawled into the corner again…curling up beneath the fur blanket, not on the bed.

Not where it happened.

Sleep didn’t come.

But neither did tears.

And that? That was her victory.

Across the castle, Therion stood alone in the war room, staring at an old map marked with blood-red ink.

The Eclipse Pack.

Caelira’s birthright.

The family that ruined him.

He poured a glass of wine, staring into its crimson depth.

“You were supposed to break,” he whispered.

But she hadn’t.

She'd stared him in the eye, begged for nothing, and then laughed when he came inside her.

His cock twitched just thinking about it.

“Fuck.”

He tossed the glass across the room.

It shattered.

But the burn inside him only grew.

If only she knew what she was to him.

What kind of war she’d stepped into.

If only… she knew the truth.

She wasn’t just a breeder.

She was the last piece of his vengeance.

And the only thing capable of destroying him.